Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Axel Honnethby Christopher Zurn(Polity Press, 2015)240 pagesDescriptionWith his insightful and wide-ranging theory of recognition, Axel Honneth has decisively reshaped the Frankfurt School tradition of critical social theory. Combining insights from philosophy, sociology, psychology, history, political economy, and cultural critique, Honneth’s work proposes nothing less than an account of the moral infrastructure of human sociality and its relation to the perils and promise of contemporary social life.This book provides an accessible overview of Honneth’s main contributions across a variety of fields, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of his thought. Christopher Zurn clearly explains Honneth’s multi-faceted theory of recognition and its relation to diverse topics: individual identity, morality, activist movements, progress, social pathologies, capitalism, justice, freedom, and critique. In so doing, he places Honneth’s theory in a broad intellectual context, encompassing classic social theorists such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Dewey, Adorno and Habermas, as well as contemporary trends in social theory and political philosophy. Treating the full range of Honneth’s corpus, including his major new work on social freedom and democratic ethical life, this book is the most up-to-date guide available.Contents1. Introduction2. Individuals’ Struggle for Recognition3. Social Struggles for Recognition4. Diagnosing Social Pathologies5. Recognition and Markets6. Social Freedom and Recognition7. Concluding SpeculationsChristopher Zurn is Associate Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of "Deliberative Democracy and the Institutions of Judicial Review" (Cambridge University Press, 2007).See also three of Zurn's papers on Axel Honneth's critical theory:* "Recognition, Redistribution, and Democracy: Dilemmas of Honneth’s Critical Social Theory" [pdf] (2005)* "Social Pathologies as Second-Order Disorders" [pdf] (2005)* "Anthropology and Normativity" (2000).See my post on Axel Honneth's book "Freedom's Right" (2014).

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Rawls and ReligionEd. by Tom Bailey & Valentina Gentile(Columbia University Press, 2015)312 pagesDescriptionJohn Rawls's influential theory of justice and public reason has often been thought to exclude religion from politics, out of fear of its illiberal and destabilizing potentials. It has therefore been criticized by defenders of religion for marginalizing and alienating the wealth of religious sensibilities, voices, and demands now present in contemporary liberal societies.In this anthology, established scholars of Rawls and the philosophy of religion reexamine and rearticulate the central tenets of Rawls's theory to show they in fact offer sophisticated resources for accommodating and responding to religions in liberal political life. The chapters reassert the subtlety, openness, and flexibility of his sense of liberal "respect" and "consensus," revealing their inclusive implications for religious citizens. They also explore the means he proposes for accommodating nonliberal religions in liberal politics, developing his conception of "public reason" into a novel account of the possibilities for rational engagement between liberal and religious ideas. And they reevaluate Rawls's liberalism from the "transcendent" perspectives of religions themselves, critically considering its normative and political value, as well as its own "religious" character. Rawls and Religion makes a unique and important contribution to contemporary debates over liberalism and its response to the proliferation of religions in contemporary political life.Contents [preview]Foreword - Sebastiano MaffettoneIntroduction [preview] - Tom Bailey & Valentina GentilePart I. Reinterpreting Rawls on Religion1. Respect and War [paper] - Christopher J. Eberle2. Religion and Liberalism: Was Rawls Right After All? - Robert B. Talisse3. Inclusivism, Stability, and Assurance - Paul Weithman4. Rethinking the Public Use of Religious Reasons [paper] - Andrew F. MarchPart II. Accommodating Religions with Rawls5. The Liberal State and the Religious Citizen - Patrick Neal6. Reasoning from Conjecture - Micah Schwartzman7. The Religious Hermeneutics of Public Reasoning - Johannes A. van der VenPart III. Transcending Rawls8. E Pluribus Unum: Justification and Redemption in Rawls, Cohen, and Habermas - James Gledhill9. A Reasonable Faith? Pope Benedict's Response to Rawls [paper] - Peter Jonkers10. Islamic Politics and the Neutral State: A Friendly Amendment to Rawls? - Abdullahi A. An-Na'im

Friday, January 16, 2015

DescriptionOver the past 25 years, Jürgen Habermas has presented what is arguably the most coherent and wide–ranging defence of the project of European unification and of parallel developments towards a politically integrated world society. In developing his key concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and the constitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers the main players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union (the politicians, the political parties and the publics of the member states) a way out of the current economic and political crisis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threats posed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozone for European unification. He is harshly critical of the incrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the German government in particular, which are being imposed at the expense of the populations of the economically weaker, crisis–stricken countries and are undermining solidarity between the member states. He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by a deeper democratization of the European institutions can the European Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant market capitalism can once again be brought under political control at the supranational level.

English translation of "Im Sog der Technokratie" (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013). Five short essays are not included in the English edition.ContentsI. The Lure of Technocracy 1. The Lure of Technocracy: A Plea for European Solidarity [abridged version] 2. European Citizens and European Peoples 3. Keywords on a Discourse Theory of Law and of the Democratic Constitutional State II. European Conditions. Continued Interventions 4. The Next Step: An Interview [text in German]5. The Dilemma Facing the Political Parties [text in German]6. Three Reasons for ’More Europe’ 7. Democracy or Capitalism?

III. German Jews, Germans and Jews 8. Jewish Philosophers and Sociologists as Returnees in the Early Federal Republic of Germany [abridged version]9. Martin Buber - A Philosophy of Dialogue in its Historical Context 10. Our Contemporary Heine: ‘There are No Longer Nations in Europe’